Unconventional electrolysis

Robert Horst

Something worth pointing out regarding the design of such system (if these experiments are worth of it) is that depending on testing conditions and procedures used a thick black foam depositing very fine black conducting material (likely mostly iron with these electrodes) on everything it makes contact with can be produced, as can be seen in this video I posted earlier on, from about minute 0:40 :

https://streamable.com/y2kdf

This appears to occur more easily when a large portion of the electrodes is immersed, the electrolyte is reused from prior tests and it's close to or above boiling temperature. It's not clear yet if it's a desirable thing, but I often observed plasma reactions to occur more easily under such conditions. More recently I've been mostly concerned with reproducing the resonating noise and I haven't seen the above effect occurring to the same extent.

Today I put the previously (re)made coil into test. In short, it seems that it brought visible changes in that the apparent discharge rate was much slower than in previous tests and produced louder resonant noise (see embedded video below), but it didn't seem to produce very bright discharges. The latter could have been due to experimental conditions and other differences out of my direct control.

The text below is directly from my notes, so it might not match exactly the previous reporting style.

Preparations

2.1 Coil

(Photo previously posted)

Figure 1: The newly prepared coil.

• 3.35mm outer 1.75mm inner, ~18 meters stranded wire, probably should be considered between AWG13 and AWG14. I think I recall it was marketed as 2.5mm² wire.
  • Since I previously measured roughly 2.95 Ohms, that's 0.164 Ohm/m, higher than I thought
  • Length was measured as 36 x 50cm lengths, so it's an approximate measurement
• This is shorter than I originally thought I had
• Melting damage was sustained on part of the insulation which got damaged while I was undoing the previous coil, so it's compromised.
  • Hopefully this will still be fine. I will need to get new wire at some point and it will be probably worth thinking of getting proper magnet wire by then.
• Obtained a 95-99 turns coil around a 2Kg steel dumbbell
  • http://www.66pacific.com/calcu…nductance-calculator.aspx
  • 95 turns
  • 3.75 cm diameter
  • 11.5 cm length
  • 1.0 cm depth
  • Calculator reports 80.1 uH
    • Does not seem a lot, but it's for an air core

2.2 Other stuff

• Electrodes
  • Same configuration as last time, not disassembled yet
  • They have been quickly washed under running hot water after the last experiment
  • Inner gap scraped and cleared with a mica spacer
  • Mica spacers on the top and the bottom of the gap respectively forming a 1.4mm and 0.4mm gap close to their position
  • One clip (insulated with folded mica spacers) at about the center to hold the electrodes together
  • Replaced insulation on the external surfaces of the electrodes on their bottom end
• Jar
  • Cleaned with warm water and soap, then rinsed again
  • Some residues from the acidic solution remain on the internal walls and might need a deeper cleaning to be removed
• Electrolyte
  • Starting with about 10ml distilled water
• Instrumentation
  • Clamp meter and multimeter for real-time reference of experimental parameter
    • Will not be logged
  • AM transistor radio
    • Tuned to 1600 kHz
    • The audio output signal will be recorded at 192 kHz
  • Video camera
    • Panasonic SDR-H20 to be used as needed to produce video documentation of any interesting reaction

Figure 2: The setup just before starting it.

Figure 3: Closeup of the jar. It now has hard to remove deposit on its internal walls.

Experimental notes

• 09:35:38 Started Audacity
• 09:36:08 Zeroed out clamp meter
• 09:36:38 Experiment started
  • Turned PSU on
• 09:37:01 12.07V, 0.06A
• 09:37:08 Slight bubbling
• 09:38:44 0.25 A
  • Current spontaneously increasing before adding HCl
• 09:39:12 HCl added
  • Seems slow to start
• 09:42:59 11.05A
• 09:43:47 39.85A
  • Experiment paused
• 09:44:40 Added HCl drop
  • Added some solution from old jar
  • Cleared gap with a mica spacer
• 09:46:36 Restarted
  • Worked for a while at a low loud rate, but then failed and current went to 39A
  • Experiment paused
• 09:49:15 Cleared gap
• 09:49:35 Restarted and worked for a while, but then current went to 35A
  • Experiment paused
• 09:57:25 Tried to run the electrodes outside jar for a while
  • Incandescent spot inside gap formed even though current is low

Figure 4: The electrodes outside of the solution.

Figure 5: Incandescent spot formed where presumably it is short-circuiting. Limited current though the electrodes at the time of the photo.

Figure 6: A different view of the spot formed.

• 10:03:23 Added water
• 10:03:44 Restart attempt, but current went to 35A quickly
• 10:06:00 Tried to restart outside solution, but it seems that inductor is overheating
• 10:06:17 Seen enough for today
  • Experiment terminated
• 10:15:43 Electrodes washed under warm water and put into another room to dry slowly

Observations

• The rate of the discharges seemed lower on average, with a base frequency lower than 500 Hz and during a later attempt lower than about 150 Hz.
  • The associated sound was at times significantly louder than usual.
    • This makes me wonder if the louder the better or if it's unrelated with any positive effect this could have.
  • Upon closer analysis, harmonics or patterns very closely resembling harmonics clearly visible at low frequencies, can be seen even at very high frequencies (tens of kHz).
  • The lower frequency does not seem to have affected my AM transistor radio's capability of picking up this signal at about 1600 kHz as usual.

Figure 7: Spectrum after the experiment began, with a base frequency of about 320 Hz.

Figure 8: Spectrum with a base frequency of only 145 Hz. Many harmonics visible in the spectrum.

• Reliability again an issue for prolonged operation (i.e. longer than a few minutes).
  • Accumulation of deposition materials into areas of low current density cause persistent short-circuits.
  • Will probably have to use o-rings and heat-resistant paint like magicsound did to prevent this.
• No significant change in Geiger counts either up or down associated with the experiment has been observed.

Figure 9: Geiger CPM for the latest 24 hours.

Figure 10: Geiger CPM for the latest 2.4 hours. No significant changes observed, but possibly some brief CPS spikes occurred.

Videos

• 001
  • The experiment since HCl was first added. It started slowly, perhaps due to adding slightly less than usual.
• 002
  • Restart attempt. The discharge rate seemed low and the noise produced was relatively loud. At the end of the video I turn the PSU off due to a persistent short-circuit taking place.
  • https://streamable.com/zj1bk
• 003
  • Another brief restart attempt where the discharge rate seems slightly lower than earlier.
• 006
  • Attempting running the electrodes out of the jar. Numerous small quiet discharges occurring all over the gap inner surface can be clearly seen. About halfway into the video the aren't visible anymore due to the residual solution in the gap drying out.
  • https://streamable.com/15qyj
• 007
  • One of the last attempts trying to run the electrodes immersed in the solution. No significant noise production, failed attempt.

For the record and avoiding being called a hypocrite for not reporting this, yesterday I tried adding a couple KOH flakes to the solution (used/already prepared) and I couldn't manage to reproduce the resonant sound except for very partially until I added back relatively large amounts of HCl and replaced the evaporating water with iron chloride (I'm assuming that's what the acidic solution it mostly is) solution from another jar.

Probably not much of general interest to report except usual experimental observations (see spoiler tag below), but here's a video of something that in retrospect might have been (slightly) more interesting than I assumed.

https://streamable.com/m1xxh 

(link)

The electrodes here were short-circuiting in an undesired manner outside the jar, causing an incandescent spot near a mica spacer. Upon rewatching this several times I think this was actually caused by a continuous arc and not just joule heating of a low resistance path, as it appeared to produce a sort of "glow" around the incandescent area. Still not sure, though. Anyway, since it was not operating intermittently and did not produce any RF noise at all, I don't feel this was a desired mode of operation.

In practice this also means that if I were to install o-rings (proposed method for holding the electrodes together instead of clips) they could possibly be quickly damaged by the heat of such hot spots, which might also form when immersed in water as well.

Experimental notes

Misc observations

Display Spoiler

• While vigorous boiling was observed (mostly due to a large continuous current being passed on average), I couldn't replicate the resonating noise this time.
  • Even after adding back relatively large amounts of HCl and progressively replacing the evaporating water with previously used acidic solution (assumed to have a pH value in the 1~2 range), similar results.
  • This could have been due to:
    1. pH still not low enough;
    2. Excessive solution conductivity;
    3. KOH acting as a sort of poison to the deposition-discharge reaction in this particular case (?).
  • Nevertheless a significant amount of material appears to have been lost from the anode following this test.
  • A possible idea to test the effect of alkaline elements on the reaction could be using K₂CO₃ in much smaller amounts, or just using tap water instead of distilled water.
    • Tap water in my area is relatively hard.
  • I will have to throw the solution away since the KOH is still there and its pH is unknown.
• Only after about 1 hour into the test (14:20) I could start seeing something reminiscent of previous results in the spectrogram traces from the recorded audio from my transistor radio.
  • Mostly broadband noise (still indicative of a positively progressing reaction) and very little resonant noise.
  • At about 1:06 hours from the start (14:26) there was a hint of resonant noise.
    • This is where I noted that discharges appeared to be occurring acoustically silently.

• At times the magnetic field generated by the 2 Kg coil was strong enough to make it slide towards the steel plate of a computer case placed a couple centimeters away from it.
  • One hour after the end of the test (15:30) the coil was surprisingly still slightly warm.
• During and after the test a noticeable reduction in Geiger counts was noticed, but it could have been coincidental (i.e. due to opening the window or time of the day).

Rjzk

If I wanted or could do things traditionally (i.e. Mizuno-style plasma electrolysis) I wouldn't have called the thread "unconventional".

The basic idea behind the tests performed in the past few weeks here has been trying to apply low-voltage, high current short pulses using readily available equipment and in the simplest manner possible. To do this I take advantage of electrodeposition through a pair of narrow-gap electrodes in order to cause short-circuits that take place at a relatively high rate due to the electrodeposited material that progressively electrically bridges both electrodes.

I use 12V DC from an ordinary computer power supply, but since there's a coil/solenoid in series with the circuit also acting as a current limiting resistor, higher voltage spikes will be generated.

Does this actually produce excess heat? Probably not, but perhaps things can be settled down once a test with proper input and output energy measurements will be done.

Rjzk

A possible issue could be that Mizuno-type experiments aren't well suited for a commercial product. Putting aside industrially low temperatures for the heated fluid, I understand that one main problem is that the tungsten electrodes tend to wear up quickly, so eventually they won't be able to work as intended anymore.

Back in 2012 Italian researcher Ugo Abundo came up with a variation which used a fluidized bed cathode (made of tungsten/tungsten-iron powder suspended in the electrolyte) which solved some of these problems. Power was conducted impulsively with discharges through the conductive slurry using rectified 120-220V DC. Later variations used deliberately pulsed power. Abundo later on went semi-commecial and apparently moved onto more complex systems that don't seem focused on heat production but I haven't followed his work closely since that.

http://www.hydrobetatron.org/f…CCF19_ABUNDO_Gen_Pubb.pdf

https://ecatsite.files.wordpre…athanor-instructions1.pdf

It would probably be easier for me if I also used a higher power supply voltage, but the point of these experiments besides testing some ideas I had was also checking out if something could be seen also using already available, zero/near-zero cost equipment and a variac just isn't in my case.

Brillouin are passing intense, narrow current pulses through low-impedance hydrogen-loaded dry cores heated to a few hundred C, which supposedly can be used in an industrial setting and won't quickly wear down as in (dusty) plasma-based systems. I think they used to have electrolytic/"wet" systems but I haven't checked those early systems in detail.

It seems that regardless of the experiment type, narrow intense pulses are part of what enables excess heat observations, but it's true that this means one has to be careful with input power measurements and the overall efficiency of the system before envisioning a cold fusion-powered world. On the other hand, there's a risk of throwing away interesting results by only considering the overall efficiency as worth of study.

magicsound

Thanks for your continued efforts. Any word on your planned changes compared to last time? Earlier you mentioned about using zinc-plated mild steel electrodes.

I tried making a web image search and I realized that mine initially had an appearance similar to this:

I can make a photo tomorrow of fresh samples to make sure, but here are a couple older photos I made partially showing how they looked like on the top portion that was not immersed in the electrolyte:

I understand from this link that this typical yellowish color is due to a zinc-chromate finish: https://www.finishing.com/113/53.shtml

For the record, following early narrow-gap electrolysis tests in KOH electrolyte at the end of last November where I observed the electrodes to cause persistent outgassing (possibly Zn reacting with KOH forming H₂ as you pointed out at that time) even after removing power, I completely removed such layer by immersion in liberally diluted 10% HCl (no electrolysis) for less than 30 minutes at ambient temperature. Outgassing in following tests (again using KOH electrolyte) was not observed after that.

All recent tests with electrolysis-discharges in HCl solution have been made well after removing that surface layer, so if you want to reproduce the same testing conditions you might want to incorporate this preparation into your next experiment.

magicsound

Some of the tests I did in the past weeks (e.g. as seen in the video I linked on the top of the page) seem to indicate that sustained arcing could be possible. As it appeared easier to observe after reusing the electrolyte from earlier testing it could mean that it's useful to have particles already suspended in some amount within it, in addition to those formed in the process. This condition could be seen as similar in a way to what Abundo did with the fluidized bed cathode in his Mizuno cell variation that I previously cited.

I think in my case the particles might also come from the thermally decomposing iron chloride and possibly water cavitation on hot electrode portions and/or near the electric arcs formed, destroying the electrode itself and part of the loose deposition layer formed.

A high water conductivity (which increases with temperature), also from circuit simulation, appears to works against the observation of discharges, but I suspect that using temperatures on average near or above the evaporation temperature of water makes them more easily observed due to the voids (=dielectric) formed by cavitation. Furthermore convection currents overall should help mobilizing the larger particles in the solution and to some extent inside the gap.

Almost just for the sake of citing this, on a loosely related note, in his abandoned 2011 patent application Brian Ahern suggested that a colloidal solution of metal particles could be formed by energetic (a 50-500 mJ/pulse figure is quoted in the patent) high voltage discharges ablating electrode material in an aqueous cell.

Quote

[...] Liquid dielectrics produce similar energy focusing capabilities as the ceramic matrices. Liquid systems provide a direct method for producing nanoparticles in situ. The high voltage discharges through a fluid ablate electrode materials that are rapidly quenched and suspended in the polar fluid. Once formed, the nanoparticles can be hydrated/deuterated by the ionization of the water during the discharges. As such, the high voltage pulses fill the H2O/D2O volume with a constellation of suspended particles filled with interstitial hydrogen (H)/deuterium (D) atoms. The particles stay in suspension due to Coulomb Repulsion as each particle is surrounded by polar water molecules that attach the oxygen to the metal cluster surface and has the two deuterium atoms from the D2O molecules facing out. The deuterium atoms have a net positive charge associated with them, so each metal cluster looks like a large positive ion that repels all the other such clusters. The nanoparticles remain equally spaced in the dielectric liquid due to this repulsion process that is very effective at small mass/charge ratios. The suspension of the nanoparticles in the polar water medium is referred as a colloidal suspension.

JedRothwell

Also Fig.6 here: https://lenr-canr.org/acrobat/MizunoTgeneration.pdf

magicsound

Do I understand correctly that you brought the electrodes in slight contact in a controlled manner, producing a resonant (self-oscillating?) electrical arc for a brief period of time until basically the electrodes welded together? (which would mean that I previously misunderstood what you planned to do as your first tests today)

For what it's worth, a few months ago I tried contact separation tests using 5V, a similar inductor as the one I recently prepared and the previous chinese-made ATX power supply. Interestingly the presence of very limited amounts of distilled water in the contact region appeared to make the plasma formed brighter, but alkaline impurities (e.g. when using tap water) quickly damped the effect.

magicsound

Interesting; definitely worth making sure if it's just radio noise. Some Italian groups have obtained neutron emissions by applying resonant ultrasounds to steel bars, without involving hydrogen.

https://www.researchgate.net/p…uclear_Neutrons_from_Iron

Also possibly relevant for when you'll use HCl:

http://aflb.ensmp.fr/AFLB-342/aflb342m669.pdf